


Helping Hand(maid)

by conceptofzero



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-16
Updated: 2012-10-16
Packaged: 2017-11-16 10:37:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/538550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conceptofzero/pseuds/conceptofzero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This isn’t what Crowbar signed up for. The job description he’d been given included a lot of things (most of them illegal), but nowhere did it include having to deal with a pre-teen, alien or not. And this one is pretty alien, grey skin and candy-coloured horns, arms crossed over her chest as she sulks on couch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Helping Hand(maid)

**Author's Note:**

> For Bea as part of an art/fic trade.

This isn’t what Crowbar signed up for. The job description he’d been given included a lot of things (most of them illegal), but nowhere did it include having to deal with a pre-teen, alien or not. And this one is pretty alien, grey skin and candy-coloured horns, arms crossed over her chest as she sulks on couch. 

“Look...” He pauses, waiting for her to give him a name. She just keeps glaring up at Crowbar, like he’s the one in the wrong here. He just caught her tossing Sawbuck’s room red-handed, and found a wad of cash on her that he knows came out of Quarter’s room. 

Crowbar doesn’t know that much about her, only that Scratch tends to keep her apart from the rest of the Felt. She isn’t in her room most of the time, and when she does appear at the occasional event, she rarely speaks and avoids the rest of the group. 

When she still refuses to give her name, Crowbar pushes on. “You can’t just steal from people.”

“You do.” She points out. So it’s going to be the kind of conversation where he has to mind his words constantly. 

“We do what Doc Scratch tells us to do. Doc didn’t tell you to steal from any of us.” Crowbar gets specific, and the girl just slouches further in her seat. He really wishes he knew where Doc got her from, and what the hell he even needs with a pre-teen in a gang like theirs. “If you need cash, just tell him. He’s good about getting you what you need.” 

The girl just keeps on glowering. He’s having flashbacks to dealing with his sisters during their teenage years. Crowbar found plenty of reasons to get the hell out of the house when they started in on this shit. 

“What do you even need the money for? Records? A new dress?” He racks his brain, trying to remember what teenage girls want. “Your boyfriend need cash?”

“I don’t have a boyfriend.” She gets snotty about it and he just barely keeps himself from rolling his eyes. The girl sits up though, as if the line of questioning has her attention. He can see her changing her attitude, just like his sister would when they wanted something. “And I only have this dress.” 

“Uh-huh.” Crowbar, who has an entire closet full of identical suits, doubts that she’s got just one dress. Maybe a dozen dresses that all look the same, but that’s not the same thing. Crowbar remembers what it’s like to only have two sets of clothes to wear and that’s not funny at all. “Sounds like a real sob story.” 

She purses her lips, but the lip she was showing before doesn’t surface. “I don’t have any money. Can’t I just have this? It’s not even that much.” 

“Doesn’t matter. You still stole from the Felt. You want to take it from somebody else, that’s fine. But we’re on the same team.” He gives her a stern talking to, not sure how much will sink in. The other guys would be rolling their eyes by now, but she just stares down at the carpet, scuffing her shoe along it. Crowbar sighs, not enjoying lecturing a kid. “Look, what did you even want it for? You might as well tell me.” 

She keeps rubbing her shoe on the carpet, and when she speaks, her voice is pretty soft. “I wanted to buy some rat poison.” 

“Rat poison? Are there mice in your room?” He asks and gets a nod from her. Huh. He hasn’t noticed any mice around, but he can’t see any reason why she would bother lying about it. “You don’t need to steal money for that. We’ve got plenty of it in the toolshed. Look, how about you give me your name, and I’ll help you set up some traps and poison?” 

“Handmaid.” She responds. Crowbar takes a moment to figure out how that relates to pool, and then shrugs it off. Not all their nicknames could be winners. 

“Okay Handmaid, I’m Crowbar.” He motions for her to get up and follow him, and she does, moving nearly silently. The girl’s got great posture for someone her age, and he watches as she has to force herself to slouch. “We don’t see you around much.” 

“I’m usually on the moon.” She adjusts the chopsticks in her hair. Crowbar doesn’t doubt what she’s saying. Scratch is powerful. Teleporting a kid back and forth between the moon would be easy as pie for him. “It’s lonely.” 

He glances down at her. She sounds pretty wistful. While she was just being a brat, he does feel for her. It’s got to be hard to be by yourself a lot of the time, especially if there aren’t many of your own kind around. Doc’s a cold fish, not exactly the kind of person you have great conversations with. 

“You know, you can always ask him to spend more time down here with us. It’s hard to be lonely with fifteen other people around.” He offers, making a note to talk to Scratch about it. If she’s lonely, that’s probably why she acted out instead of asking for help from a bunch of strangers. It couldn’t hurt anybody to have her get used to the rest of the Felt, and them to her. 

She shrugs; typical teenage response. But there’s a bit of a hopeful look in her eyes. Crowbar will still bring it up. He remembers being that age. It was hard to come out and tell somebody what you really wanted, especially if you really wanted it.

There’s plenty of poison in the shed, and a few traps. She and Crowbar head up to the Handmaid’s room and he shows her how to bait them with a little butter. “Rats go nuts for any sort of fat,” he tells her, setting the hair-trigger, “Now watch your fingers, or you’ll really lose ‘em.” 

After they set the poison up, she ends up grabbing hold of the bag. “Can I keep it here? In case I need to get rid of more?” 

“I’d rather put it back in the shed. This stuff is pretty dangerous. You don’t want to accidentally eat any.” He’s reluctant to hand it over. But when she clutches against her chest, he reminds himself about how he felt at that age when adults trusted you instead of treating you like an idiot. “Alright, fine. But we’ll put it in a safe place, and I’ll let the other guys know where it is.” 

They put it on her bookshelf, where she’s not likely to grab it by accident. The Handmaid seems content with that, and he watches her busy herself, digging out a tea set. “Would you like to have tea with me?” 

Crowbar doesn’t care for tea, but he can drink a cup or two. “Sure. Anything I can do to help?” 

“Could you boil some water? The kettle’s in the kitchen.” She sounds a sweet as pie asking that and he chuckles, having walked right into doing the hard work. 

“Sure, I’ll be right back up in a jiff.” He lets himself out and heads downstairs to the kitchen. The kettle’s under the sink and he fills it up, turning a burner on and setting it on the stove to heat up. Crowbar leans against the counter, waiting for the whistle. 

It’s while he’s waiting that Scratch appears in his usual way; a drop of temperature and the crackle of electricity as he simply materializes. “Hey Doc.” 

“Crowbar. I see you have met the Handmaid.” Of course Doc knows that. The man knows everything. 

“She was stealing from Sawbuck and Quarters. I sorted her out. You need to give her some spending money, or at least make sure she gets out more. The kid’s lonely. You know how girls get at that age.” Crowbar chats with him, not sure how Scratch is taking any of this. He’s a hard one to read with that cueball for a head. “You might want to have her hang out with some of the others in the house, maybe Doze or Snowman. They’re both harmless enough.” 

Doc Scratch says nothing, his arms folded behind his back. When he speaks, it confuses the hell out of Crowbar. “When was the last time you saw a mouse in the mansion?”

“A mouse?” He stops to think. “... never, I guess. Handmaid said she saw some in her room though.” 

“Yes, she did say that.” Scratch just keeps standing there, not explaining a thing. Crowbar taps his fingers on the counter, waiting for something. 

“You think she’s lying? I could buy her lying about lots of other things, but mice? What would a teenage girl lie about that for? It’s not like she can use rat poison for anything.” He points out when it goes on for too long. 

“Yes, what would a teenage girl use rat poison for.” Crowbar is really getting tired of Scratch stepping around the subject. It’s not like the Handmaid’s going to poison any of the Felt with it. She doesn’t even talk to them. And Scratch doesn’t eat, so you can’t poison him. And it’s not like she’s going to eat it herself-

He finally remembers the other thing about teenage girls, that unpleasant unfortunate but inevitable truth of life when you are a miserable teenager. “Oh fuck! She’s up there with the bag now-” 

“I wouldn’t be concerned.” For somebody without vocal cords, Doc Scratch had really perfected the art of sounding smug. “I replaced the poison pellets with pet food. She will be less hungry when dinner rolls around, but no less worse for wear.”

“I... what?” Crowbar just stares at Scratch, trying to figure out if this is some sort of joke he’s just not getting. “You replaced- why did you even let her near them in first place?”

“Because she was always going to go near them. This isn’t the first time she has attempted to kill herself. Nor will it be the last. Some people collect stamps to occupy their minds; the Handmaid accrues suicide attempts.” Scratch draws his hand over the counter, looking at his fingers and rubbing the grit on them. “Inform Sawbuck that he must clean up after himself.” 

“Multiple times? God, Doc, she needs help. That girl needs a professional to talk to, and a change in her life if she’s that desperate to kill herself!” He’s not appalled often, not in his line of work, but right now he’s working himself into a really justified froth over this. 

“She won’t succeed. Her death won’t be for many years to come.” Scratch easily dismisses Crowbar’s concern. Not for the first time, Crowbar really hates how Scratch drops hints about the future. “You may feel free to provide help if you insist, but she is rarely worth wasting your breath on when it comes to the matter of her life.” 

“Just because she won’t manage to do it, doesn’t mean-” His protests are halted when Scratch holds up one hand.

“Even now, with a stomach full of pellets she believes to be poison, she is looking for other items to assist in her futile self-termination. You will want to return quickly, before she seeks out a belt to hang herself with. Enjoy your tea.” Scratch’s voice remains calm, but undeniably smug. 

Just as he finishes, the tea kettle whistles, interrupting them and causing Crowbar to glance back at it. By the time he turns around to give Scratch a piece of his mind, he’s already gone. 

“Are you-” He sighs with frustration and kicks the cupboard door. It really only hurt his foot, it makes him feel somewhat better. He’d call him a son of a bitch, but Crowbar’s not even sure he’s got a mother. 

After another kick, he pays attention to the still whistling kettle. He shuts the burners off and takes it off the stove. The handle’s hot as hell, and he finds a kitchen mitt to put on before picking it up again. Crowbar glances up toward the bedroom, trying to imagine the Handmaid shoveling what she thinks is poison into her mouth. He sighs and heads for the stairs, shaking his head.

They’re going to have a talk over tea. And Crowbar is never going to let that girl near poison ever again.


End file.
